Speeches

Jun102009

Mr. Speaker, unveiled today was a new energy plan that would increase production of American-made energy in an environmentally sound manner. The American Energy Act is an all-of-the-above solution that offers more affordable energy, good-paying American jobs and American energy independence, and it is safe for the environment.

However, what the administration and the taxacrats are still proposing is a none-of-the-above approach to energy development. They call it the cap-and-trade bill. Their answer is to tax energy consumption, not actually find more energy.

Their new tax will cost the average American family over $3,000 in additional taxes each year. If you use energy, you are going to be taxed. That will mean all sources of energy will cost all consumers more money. Electricity costs will go up. Natural gas, gasoline, and even the cost of food and consumer goods will rise. Everything is going to cost a whole lot more, because everything Americans buy is produced using the energy the administration is going to tax.

Their plan is to punish Americans who use energy by taxing them, plus there is no real plan for energy that they propose. Their new cap-and-trade national energy tax will financially devastate middle class families across America. It will be especially hard on energy-producing States like Texas that are going to lose thousands of jobs.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office issued their analysis of the energy consumption tax this week. The CBO reports say that the administration cap-and-trade tax imposes $846 billion in new national energy taxes that will affect all of us. Not only that, the CBO told the Senate the new energy consumption tax will have little or no effect on the climate. Now, isn't that lovely?

The none-of-the-above energy plan and tax on business hammers what few manufacturing plants are left in the United States. It is going to send countless American jobs overseas to places like China and India. You see, both of these countries have said they are not going to participate in any scheme to cap-and-tax carbon like America is going to do. Thus, they will make what were American products cheaper in those countries. Also, if all of these factories and plants move overseas, along with the jobs, to so-called polluting nations, how is this going to have any positive effect on our climate?

At the same time, the taxacrats are trying to kill off carbon-based fuel supplies; that is, things like oil and its derivatives, as well as natural gas. There is no transition fuel that exists at this time. That is at least 10 years away. Now we are really in a fix; no new energy, and, literally, we are going to be in the dark and we are going to be taxed back to the stone age.

The strange part of all this is that the taxacrats say natural gas could be that transition fuel, but they are trying to kill the drilling of natural gas, especially offshore. I wonder if they understand that natural gas is a carbon-based fossil fuel that requires drilling to unearth? You cannot grow natural gas like corn.

Those taxacrats also want to force us all into small, little green cars that are death traps. Have you seen these things? These dinky cars are too small for people like me and too small for even groceries or putting children in these toy cars. There is no room, and they are unsafe at any speed.